Asian Movie Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘Extreme’

Gu is a hard-nosed Korean-Japanese hoodlum living in Shimonoseki, Japan. When friends “accidentally” kill the grandmother of a ruthless North Korean-Japanese thug, a whirlwind of violence and revenge is set to explode. In the process, Gu, having no fear, pisses off a string of other criminal gang members and Korean-Japanese thugs who all want him dead. There’s also Detective Fujita lingering in the shadows looking for Gu, but where is he? To escape from it all Gu lucks his way into a managerial job in another city for a hostess club, run by a suave man named Takagi. Instincts tells Gu that Takagi is more than he seems. In fact, Takagi works for a rival gang and may be involved with drugs. Gu’s grandmother drops by to inform him that his best friend has been killed. This persuades Gu to return to Shimonoseki to settle the score. All hell is about to break loose.

This movie takes a very violent look at the criminal underworld involving the Zainichi (Korean-Japanese). Those who enjoyed the “Crows Zero” movies which involved a lot of male testosterone gang violence will want to take a look at this movie though unlike those movies this one doesn’t have any sympathetic characters (apart from Gu’s grandmother) portrayed in it at all. The story is based on the experiences of the director Gu Su Yeon when he was younger. It is set in Shimonoseki, a city where there is a high percentage of ethnic Koreans live in Japan. Koreans living in Japan aren’t looked at favourably by the Japanese people and to say that life isn’t easy for them is quite an understatement. The plot focuses on a cocky and charismatic young man who’s quite an unpleasant and vicious character (same goes for the majority of characters in this movie). He goes around upsetting nearly everybody with his devil may care attitude which naturally makes him a lot of enemies. He’s not averse to even beating up his superiors with a motorcycle helmet when two of them attempt to rape a young woman in their apartment. That might make him seen like a champion of women of sort to some viewers but later we see again just what a nasty piece of work he really is. Gu is seen trying to date a high school girl named Mieko Nakamura who catches his eye but when he finds out that she has been having sex with his friend his payback is brutally raping her in a park. The treatment of women in this movie is rather appalling and they are seen as merely sex objects to be treated badly by the men. It’s only a matter of time before Gu is going to be subjected to his own brand of medicine so when he picks on North Korean gang leader Park and his 3 cronies in a cafe with a metal bar who he thinks has murdered his close friend, the beating Gu receives is more than deserved. If it’s spectacular street violence you want and see, it’s got it in droves here with a lot of people being beaten up, murdered and even stabbed. The fights are choreographed well and even looks real. Even with all the violence going on in this movie there is some dark humour peppered throughout and a cool funky jazz soundtrack. Movie fans who are familiar with Japanese 70’s crime movies such as the Battles Without Honor series will see that this one has got that feel to it. I’m not sure if this was the director’s own way of paying tribute to those kind of movies?

Shota Matsuda who is best known in the past couple of years from the drama Liar Game gives a terrific performance as the badboy Gu. He plays a character so different from Akiyama here. Matsuda has some Korean blood from his late father’s side who was half-Korean and acted in some violent movies during the 70’s so I’m sure he watched a couple of his father’s work to draw inspiration for his own role. The character of Gu is quite amusing in the way he swaggers around town like he owns the place, slapping some of the other thugs across the head and just doing whatever he wants whenever he wants regardless of the consequences he might face in the future.

Due to the violence on display and the harsh treatment the women receive, Hard Romanticker certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste but if you like these kind of fast paced rough and tumble movies you should find it very enjoyable.

This is the first in the popular Joy Of Torture anthology movie series which is split into 3 different stories each featuring some nasty torture scenes being performed on mostly women. It is set during the Tokugawa shogunate era. The first story concerns a brother and a sister. The brother has an accident and they cannot pay for the medical bills so the sister comes to a sexual arrangement with the local kimono shop owner who will pay the bills for them. This sparks off jealousy from the brother who professes his love for his sister. The doctor finds out about their incestuous relationship and all hells breaks loose. The second story is about a new Mother Superior who comes to a convent and finds herself aroused when she looks at one of the priests working there. The priest is caught having an affair with one of the nuns who is brutally tortured by the Mother Superior. The only way to stop the torture is if the priest confesses his love for the Mother Superior or if the nun says she will forget about the priest. When the local magistrate hears of what is happening at the convent, he goes with a large team of soldiers to arrest the Mother Superior and punish her for her crimes. The third and last story is about a master tattooist Horicho who creates an interesting creation of a woman in agony on the back of a local geisha. The locals are impressed with his work except Lord Nambara who says it’s not realistic as the pain on the woman’s face is wrong. Disappointed with the criticism, Horicho searches for another woman to make the perfect tattoo. When he finds the woman, she refuses his request to make a tattoo on her back so Horicho drugs and takes her to his place. To shame the woman, he tattoos her private parts. Not wanting to make a mistake with the facial features on his new tattoo, Horicho begs for Lord Nambara to take him to Nagasaki where he can watch him torture Russian female Christian missionaries. Horicho manages to capture the agony of their faces perfectly for his tattoo but he can’t quite get the torturer’s face right but he has a plan on how to achieve that……

If you read my review for the sequel to this movie (Oxen Split Torturing) a while ago you’ll have an idea what to expect here. Whilst the opening scene has nothing to do with the three stories, it does set the tone for what you’ll be witnessing: a woman tied up in rope and left dangling whilst an executioner chops off her head and slices her body in half with another woman being burnt at the stake! This movie isn’t as bloodthirsty as the sequel although there are many unspeakable atrocities on show. The violence towards women is disturbing which makes you wonder just why did the Japanese public enjoy these kind of movies? Who in their right mind likes watching women being abused? This movie paved the way for the pink violence/exploitation genre that flourished during the 70’s. The 3 stories vary in quality. The first tale is relatively tame with no bloodshed although it is quite depressing. The second is better with some spearings and crucifixion but it’s in the final story that the more brutal acts takes place: waterboarding, whippings, torture rack usage and women being burnt akin to meat being barbequed on a spit. Production values are high so this isn’t a low budget movie at all. The acting is very good and the stories are interesting and sound in structure. It’s not like the filmmakers cobbled together the 3 stories on a whim just so they could highlight the graphic torture scenes.

If you like these type of movies and expect to see a lot of gore on display then you’ll be disappointed but those with an interest in the history in cinema and who want to see how the exploitation genre began it’s worth a look. It just isn’t for me I’m afraid.

No trailer but here’s a clip from the second story. For those that are easily offended do not watch.

Pretty high school student and karate expert Megumi decides to take a camping trip to the countryside with her friends Tak, Aya, Maki and Naoi after the death of her sister who was bullied by her peers at school for farting. Near where they are camping, a mad scientist Dr Tanaka is experimenting with zombies in his mansion and trying to find a cure for his sick daughter Sachi by inserting a large alien tapeworm up her ass! Megumi and her friends do a spot of fishing on a river and catch a fish with an unusual living tapeworm inside its guts. The slutty Maki who thinks that it will help keep her skinny pops it in her mouth and eats it. Maki soon finds herself farting like a trojan and has to go to a toilet due to stomach pains. She finds an outhouse with a hole for a toilet in the grounds of Dr Tanaka’s house which the gang have stumbled into. As soon as she tries to take a dump, there’s an odd noise coming from the bowels of the hole below which is filled with faeces/urine and a pair of zombie hands emerges which fondles Maki’s ass!! The gang come under attack from a horde of zombies who emerge from the outhouse all covered in crap!! Maki soon turns into a zombie thanks to the parasitical tapeworm inside her which likes to pop out of her ass every now and then! The gang are saved by Dr Tanaka and Sachi but when Megumi finds out the truth of his evil experiments she tells her friends and they try and escape but not before they’re all infected with the alien tapeworm thanks to a meal of spaghetti they all thought they were eating but was in fact something else! It’s now a battle of survival for the gang against the zombies and the knife wielding Sachi but will they succumb to the tapeworm growing inside them and is Megumi’s karate skills good enough to save them?

When you decide to see something with a title such as this, I think most people will already know what kind of movie it’s going to be! From cult director Noburo Iguchi who created The Machine Girl comes this tongue-in cheek, low brow comedy movie which is chock full of toilet humour and I mean that quite literally. From exploding heads, parasite tapeworms emerging from asses, nudity, bodies cut in two by an axe to panty shots, eyeball popping and heads blown off by shotgun – this has got it all with a lot of splatter effects. This movie is an ass fetishist’s dream with many beautiful rumps displayed and it contains every imaginable shit and fart joke that you can think of! The zombies in this movie do not have red blood in their bodies but shit flowing through their dead veins so when their heads and limbs are cut off or stamped upon the brown stuff is seen gushing out like a geyser. Director Iguchi knows how to handle this kind of material well. He has one hell of an imagination and delivers a ridiculously insane fun movie that he knows the audience will have a good time watching it although it does get a little absurd right at the climax with a fart fuelled aerial duel between Megumi and the alien parasite queen/Sachi. The story as always in these kind of movies takes second fiddle to the violence that is shown as that’s what the viewer wants to see. Judging by how many lingering shots of asses there is in this movie, I think we can take for granted that the director loves the female bottom! The cast seem to be having a blast working on this movie and the female actresses which includes Arisa Nakamura as the heroine Megumi are stunning. It’s very much a unique and original movie that only the Japanese could make and you have to thank them for that.

If you find fart jokes funny or you like Japanese splatter gore comedies then this movie will be right up your street. It’s silly and disgusting and a good laugh. It’s definitely not for the easily offended! It’s not Iguchi’s best movie as The Machine Girl takes a lot of beating but I did enjoy this extreme horror romp.

Ozaki is a senior yakuza member who is going slightly mad and the big boss decides that the only option he has left is to get rid of him. He asks Ozaki’s closest ally Minami to drive him to the yakuza disposal dump in Nagoya and to report back when the job has been completed. However, on the way there during an incident Ozaki is accidentally killed. Minami stops at a cafe where he tries to phone his boss but on looking through the window at his car Ozaki’s body has gone. Where could a dead body go? Minami decides to ask around to see if anybody has seen Ozaki and that’s the start of a weird journey for him……..

Just when I thought Takashi Miike couldn’t surprise me anymore, I get to see this movie and it left me with my mouth gaping open at the end. I don’t want to reveal too much as it would spoil the viewer’s enjoyment but what you’ll get to see is a surreal and bizarre movie with one of the most incredible endings you’ll ever see committed to celluloid. It’s an outrageously funny movie right from the beginning as Ozaki sees what he believes is a dog that’s been trained to attack yakuza personnel. The dog is a small chihuahua by the way! What Ozaki does next to the dog will likely make you laugh and horrify you at the same time! Many fans have commented that this is what David Lynch would do if he ever made a hallucinogenic yakuza movie! The main character Minami comes across some weird and wonderful characters as he tries to track down his ‘brother’ Ozaki such as an older woman who is lactating constantly and selling her milk to customers in bottles and his own boss who has to insert a ladle up his arse in order to get an erection! Fans of Miike will be amazed at the style of this movie – it’s so unlike the majority of his other works. The storyline is basically about Minami’s sexual feelings for Ozaki which has been hidden and there are clues throughout the movie about his homosexuality.The tongue-in-cheek story whilst a little bit confusing at times is nevertheless compelling and well written. Miike’s directing as usual is fantastic and the cinematography, sets and visual effects are top notch. And then we come to the coup de grace of the movie – the ending which will no doubt shock a lot of viewers but it is so incredible. I’ve never witnessed anything like that in a movie before and I doubt anybody else will either! Miike is not likely to ever top the ending in this movie.

Excellent performances from all the cast. Sho Aikawa is brilliant, he never fails to entertain me but it’s Yuta Sone as Minami who excels and moves the story forward. It’s through his eyes we get to see the odd events that happen to him. It was nice to see Kimiko Yoshino again. Those who have seen the Eko Eko Azarak movies will remember her as the lead character Misa. She’s been mostly quiet in the entertainment world since 2007.

This is a must-see for Miike fans or those that like strange movies. Others might see this as being too f***ed up for their liking but at least it’s unique. Miike really delivers with Gozu and proves what an innovative, genius and creative director he is. Highly recommended.

Kikou is a college student who works part time in a love hotel along with 4 other odd employees who are a card short of a full deck. His job is to clear out the rooms after the customers have left which isn’t nice considering that he has to get rid of condoms and other filth. Coming home one day, he witnesses a schoolgirl with a limp and a scar on her leg being mercilessly bullied by 3 girls. Instead of trying to help, he hides, watches and finds that he’s enjoying seeing the girl being bullied. In time, he begins to develop a taste for abusing the girl. Kikou becomes obsessed with a pretty neighbour Hitomi who works at the checkout of his local convenience store. He collects her trash where he starts collating all the personal information he can about her, eats and drinks her garbage including half eaten sandwiches and fruit juice cartons and the most disgusting of all – making a collage on his wall of his apartment of all the sanitary towels she has discarded! Meanwhile, two schoolgirls rob a man of his money at the love hotel and escape but not before one of them drops her ID card. Three of Kikou’s colleagues decide to track her down and teach her a lesson in a junkyard where she is raped by all of them. Kikou is hiding nearby and watching. After they have left he takes her back to his place where she is chained up to a bed, her body measured, fed with maggots and tortured by a hair dryer before Kikou ends her life. Her body is disposed at a nearby incinerator. During a work shift at the love hotel, Kikou’s neighbour Hitomi comes there with a man who’s a regular at the place. Feeling betrayed by the woman he loves, this is enough to take Kikou over the edge and what happens next is not for the faint hearted……….

This is probably the most disturbing movie in the All Night Long trilogy and if you’ve read my other reviews on the first 2 installments you’ll have an idea of what to expect here. The tagline of “Human Beings Are Garbage” seems an appropriate one for the depravity you’ll witness here. Certain scenes definitely push the boundaries of acceptable taste. None of the characters in this movie bar the schoolgirl and Hitomi are sympathetic. The difference between this movie and the other two is that the main character is f***ed up already. I felt that the director was only interested in trying to shock the viewer so there’s only a thin plot to string things along from one depraved act to the next. Women haven’t been treated very well in the previous 2 installments and the same happens in this movie as well. The horror is ramped up in the final third which includes a beheading, a bullet to the eye and a dismemberement of a female corpse in a bath. It’s not as bloody as the 2nd movie though. Yujin Kitagawa is chilling as Kikou. It’s easy to see that he’s the type of person that wouldn’t take a lot to turn into a rampaging psychopath.

A bleak, sadistic and nasty movie to finish off the twisted horror trilogy. Although it is billed as being the final chapter, it has been followed by 3 more in the series which I’ve yet to see. Exploitation fans and that of sleaze cinema will no doubt relish this movie.

Shunichi is your stereotypical bespectacled otaku who enjoys sculpting hentai anime dolls. He’s bullied at his school by a gang of thugs led by a homosexual who carries a mini blowtorch and a small blade in his pocket. Shunichi tries to avoid the gang as the leader is sexually fascinated by him but is unfortunately ambushed one day and beaten up by them. He is threatened with even more beatings if he doesn’t cough up a lot of money. To show they mean business the gang stub out a cigarette on his penis and destroys his precious anime doll! Shunichi tries to go online to get some help and is answered by a person that calls himself GOOD_MAN who offers to help him out. The homosexual gang leader comes round to Shunichi’s and invites him out for dinner at his apartment with the intention of seducing him. He is also shown a pet he keeps – not only a gerbil but also a young woman that has been raped, drugged up to the eyeballs with heroin and had her fingernails torn out on both hands. She’s his personal plaything where she’s nothing more than a dog. Shunichi starts taking part in torturing the poor girl but eventually leaves. After GOOD_MAN leaves a message asking to meet Shunichi the next day, he fails to turn up but several people who also had the same message come to the same location. Shunichi and the people seem to get on like a house on fire and they all go to Shunichi’s place to have some food and drink. However, the great time they’ve had doesn’t last for long because the homosexual leader and his gang turn up and all hell starts to break loose. How much longer can Shunichi take this abuse before he snaps?

There’s no doubt that when it comes to showing extreme sadism and brutality in movies, the Japanese are up there with the best. This, the 2nd in the All Night Long trilogy shows some pretty sick images which may see some viewers scampering for the toilet bowl afterwards to throw up! If you thought things couldn’t get any more brutal after the first movie then you’re wrong. The violence on display in this movie goes up a notch – very twisted and insane. It is definitely shocking and disturbing as we see Shunichi’s innocence evaporate over the course of the movie to the point where he finally gives in to the violence all around him and he turns into an even more merciless killer than those that tortured him. There are a lot of graphic scenes throughout the movie so you have been warned. An example of what you’ll expect is right near the end of the movie which sees Shunichi tie up the homosexual leader on a chair and use the mini blowtorch on his face. That’s only one example though and there’s plenty more nastiness where that came from. The only 2 female characters in the movie are treated horribly at the hands of the gang and subjected to various degradation and humiliation.

For a movie that delves into the darker side of humanity, All Night Long 2 works extremely well so if you’re into extreme cinema this will be right up your street. It is rather unpleasant to watch particularly in the last third and the images you encounter may linger in your mind for a while afterwards.

The movie is split to 2 short stories: one set in the 17th century and the other in the 19th. The first concerns a young samurai Sasaki who falls in love with a young woman Toyo after she saves his life when he is bitten by a snake in the country. At the time christianity was outlawed and a sadistic magistrate rounds up any practicing christians and brutally tortures before executing them. Sasaki is an employee of the magistrate. Toyo and her family are captured and tortured for being christians for the magistrate’s own amusement. To make things worse, he tests Sasaki’s loyalty by raping Toyo in front of him and making her his concubine. He tries to get Sasaki to take part in the torture but he refuses. Other members of Toyo’s family are given different but no less cruel torture methods which ends in their deaths except her little sister. The second story is set in a brothel and concerns a man Sutezo who after being given the services of a prostitute finds he cannot pay so he has to work in the place for a whole year and in the process finds himself being humiliated by having his hair shaved off completely. He is witness to the nasty practices that happens if one of the girls gets pregnant or if somebody tries to help one of the girls escape from this hell. After a while Sutezo plans an escape with one of the prostitutes named Sato. They are successful in escaping but are soon caught by the magistrate. What happens to them next is not a pretty sight.

This is an incredibly horrific and depressing movie and it will take a brave soul with a strong stomach to go through this 75 minute movie without wincing once. It is proper torture porn in all it’s bloody glory with many scenes of extreme violence. There is no happy ending in either story. The first is probably the nastier of the two in the unrelenting brutality that we see. It just goes from one torture scene to another. Various torture methods are employed and shown in the movie such as being burnt at the stake, a woman cut in two with a sword, another woman thrown in a large water tank before a basket full of poisonous snakes are dumped on her, a naked person dunked in hot boiling water and people being crucified. The worst is Toyo’s 12 year old sister beaten mercilessly with a stick before being blinded by a red hot poker and then we have the coup de grace of Toyo tied up on a board getting her legs ripped off by two oxen much to the delight of the laughing magistrate who you’ll grow to despise. He is one sadistic bastard who just enjoys seeing people in pain. The 2nd story begins in an amusing manner but quickly goes downhill. One unfortunate prostitute gets pregnant and we see how the proprietor of the brothel deals with it. The woman is stamped upon on the stomach before an old woman rips the foetus from the womb. It is horrible to see and it just gets worse as a man’s ear is torn off with a knife and Sutezo is forced to eat it before having to cut the man’s penis with a razorblade. Sato and Sutezo’s deaths isn’t very pleasant to see either.

As you have just read in the paragraph above, this movie is VERY graphic so please don’t watch if you’re of a weak disposition and easily offended by the storyline because it really is unspeakably cruel. If this movie was created just for shock value alone it certainly works. It comes close at times to being at the level of the Guinea Pig series. This isn’t some low budget movie at all. Production values along with costumes, sets and the gruesome special effects are convincing, realistic and of a high standard. The tragic 2 storylines are written well with some good acting by all the cast even though one or two come close to hamming it up too much for my liking.

If you still haven’t been put off, you’ll be rewarded with a twisting, disturbing and depraved extreme horror movie. Exploitation fans will lap it up.